With a $658 million investment in Virtual Reality during 2015, the future of healthcare looks set to be one of the big users of VR/AR (Augmented Reality).

Through advances in technology, we can already see its implementation in diagnostics, training, treatments and rehabilitation, see infographic.

There is hard evidence that VR and AR technologies improve education and treatments’ effectiveness through creating a more engaging, motivational and safe environment. The general consensus is that VR and AR may move patients and carers further away from the reality of a treatment or situation but these views could not be further from the truth. In fact, recent experiments indicate that immersive technologies foster empathy between caretakers and their patients, aiding a mutual understanding.

The future looks bright, virtual and decidedly augmented… for the better.

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The market will continue to grow. We will see an increased amount of diverse content, better software and hardware communications, sophisticated sensors, artificial intelligence, and more affordable solutions. All of this, combined with additional data from research labs, will lead to a higher level of VR technology adoption both by the healthcare institutions and patients.